," said one of the others wistfully. "You
don't belong to his Division or his turret or anything."

"It was my turn. You went last time. But you missed something, I can
tell you!"

"What d'you mean," said the Sub over the top of his paper. "Just cough
up the details and let your beastly breakfast wait."

The Night Patroller extracted the backbone from a bloater with swift
dexterity. "Well," he continued, "it was very dark last night and
foggy in patches: rum night. Very little wind and no sea. We were
right outside and the Engineer sent up to say he thought there was
something foul of the propeller. So we stopped and investigated with a
boathook. There was a lot of weed and stuff fouling us. We were
playing about with it _mit_ boathook for nearly a quarter-of-an-hour,
and suddenly old Mouldy Jakes put up his head and sniffed about a bit
and muttered 'Baccy.'"

"He's got a nose like a hawk," said the Midshipman of that officer's
Division with a tinge of pride in his voice.

The Mess perforce had to possess its soul in patience while the
raconteur swiftly disposed of the bloater.

"So I sniffed too, and I could smell it quite plain. We were lying
stern to the wind; 'sides it wasn't decent baccy like ours, but sort of
Scorp stuff, so we knew it wasn't one of our fellows smoking. Hashed
mutton, please; and another cup of coffee. It was pitch dark and for a
moment we couldn't see a thing. Then, suddenly, right on top of us
came a submarine! She was on the surface and there was a fellow on the
conning tower and a couple of figures aft. She must have been smelling
about on the surface having a smoke and recharging her batteries."

The remainder of the Gunroom had crowded round the speaker, some
kneeling on the form with their elbows among the debris of breakfast,
others sat on the edge of the table hugging their knees.

"My word, Matt," said one, his eyes dancing, "I bet you got cold feet."

"Cold feet!" snorted the hero of the moment. "There wasn't time for
cold feet. It was too sudden. They just grazed past us, going very
slow, and there was a devil of a bobbery. I fancy they thought they
were properly in the _consomme_. A trap or something. Anyhow the two
braves aft lost their heads and jumped overboard, and the bird in the
conning tower disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box--properly rattled."

"What price old Mouldy?" asked the listeners. "Utterly unmoved, I
suppose! Lord, I'd love to have